Imane Khelif case has another chapter: International Olympic Committee explains that tests carried out by the AIB were ‘defective’

A new chapter was added this Sunday in the case of the boxer Imane Khelif, who became the focus of criticism after being wrongly accused of being a transgender person who was competing in the welterweight category of women’s boxing in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The 25-year-old boxer was criticized for failing gender eligibility tests in 2023, when she was disqualified from the Women’s Amateur World Boxing Championships for high testosterone levels, the International Boxing Association (IBA) said.

Committee attacks AIB

This Sunday, the International Olympic Committee He again pointed out against the International Boxing Association (IBA) and pointed out that The tests carried out on Algerian Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-Ting are “so defective that it is impossible to take them into account”.

“The female boxers were tested because there were suspicions against them. Needless to say, if we start acting on the basis of suspicions against every athlete for whatever reason, then we are going down a very bad path,” he began by saying. Mark Adams, spokesman for the International Olympic Committee.

“There are a whole range of reasons why we won’t take them into account… Partly for confidentiality reasons, partly for medical reasons, partly because there was no basis for the test in the first place, and partly because sharing this data is also against international rules,” the spokesman said.

For the IOC, the tests carried out Imane and Lin Yu are “so flawed” and “arbitrary” that they cannot be taken into account for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

“The whole process is flawed. From the conception of the test, to how it was shared with us and how it was made public, everything is so flawed that it is impossible to take it into account,” he said.

“I am not going to discuss in public the intimate details of individual athletes, which I think is very disgusting on the part of those who leaked that material. Frankly, it must be horrible to be in that position. On top of all the harassment on social media that these athletes have received,” she added.

For his part, the IOC president Thomas Bach She described what was happening in the case of Imane Khelif as a “culture war” and came out to defend the female boxers who were unfairly involved in the controversy.

“We have two boxers who were born as women, who were raised as women, who have a passport as women and who have competed for many years as women… Some people want their own definition of who a woman is,” she said.

Imane is the pride of Algeria

For his part, the President of Algeria, Abdelmadjid Tebboune congratulated this Saturday Imane Kheif for qualifying for the semi-finals of the Olympic Games and for placing the name of the African country at the top of the sporting world.

“Congratulations on your qualification, Imane Khelif, you have brought honour to Algeria, to Algerian women and to Algerian boxing,” the Algerian head of state wrote on social network X and wished her “good luck and keep going” for the “next two rounds… We will be by your side whatever your results.”

The 25-year-old boxer qualified on Saturday by beating Hungarian Anna Luca Hámori and secured herself an Olympic medal.

HAROLD YEPES

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